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Sexualizing Neoliberalism: Identifying Technologies of Privatization, Cleansing, and Scarcity

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Abstract

Drawing from sexual politics unfolding in the contemporary Indian context, this article tracks the ways that sexuality provides particularly fertile ground for neoliberalism’s itineraries. Juxtaposing three disparate cases involving the struggle for decriminalization, labor rights, and migration, it identifies the technologies of privatization, cleansing, and scarcity as crucial to normalizing neoliberalism. In so doing, the essay analyzes how states continue to thrive by extending market principles through privatization, promoting the interests of the urban middle classes while dislocating subaltern communities, and upholding racist and nationalist ideologies by deporting select migrant populations.

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Notes

  1. http://www.lwbooks.co.uk/journals/soundings/pdfs/manifestoframingstatement.pdf, consulted on July 29, 2013. This statement frames the Kilburn Manifesto, which is to be published in 12 installments.

  2. For useful examples, complexly theorizing neoliberalism and race, see the work by Michelle Alexander (2010) and Ruth Gilmore (2006) on the imbrications of racism, gender, capital, and state policies to account for the exponential growth of prisons in the USA.

  3. For important exceptions, see Kate Bedford (2009) and Lisa Rofel (2007).

  4. Another such legal challenge (CW No. 1784/1994) had been filed earlier by the group, AIDS Bhedbhav Virodhi Andolan, but lapsed in Delhi High Court due to non-prosecution.

  5. For a fuller account of the history and trajectory of the legal campaign, see Puri (2016).

  6. Since Section 377 has also been used to prosecute sexual assault on children, especially boys, as well as women when the violence exceeds definitions of rape and asking for the repeal of the law would raise more complex questions, the Naz Foundation writ asked the courts to “read down” the law so as to decriminalize homosexuality.

  7. http://lawandotherthings.blogspot.com/2009/07/navigating-noteworthy-and-nebulous-in.html, consulted on July 28, 2015. In a subsequent post, Raghavan qualifies his praise of this de-localized understanding of privacy that is presented mostly through selective citations of case law and not adequately supported by a substantive discussion by the justices, http://lawandotherthings.blogspot.com/2009/07/navigating-noteworthy-and-nebulous-in_08.html, consulted on July 28, 2015.

  8. The sexual health perspective from which the writ is framed means that though lesbian and bisexual women, Hijras, and others are included, the focus remains on those who are seen as especially vulnerable to the spread of HIV and AIDS-related complications, namely MSM and gay men. The police, often at the behest of family members, have frequently used section 377 to intimidate lesbian and bisexual women. Even though lesbian women are not immune to the threat of Section 377, they are sidelined in the writ as a low-risk group for HIV infections. Especially since the language of the law emphasizes penetration in its explanation section of 377, it leaves open the possibility of prosecuting lesbian women.

  9. The Naz Foundation writ, too, was joined some five years later in the Delhi High Court by the Voices against Section 377 petition and more friendly interventions once the 2009 Delhi High Court ruling was appealed in the Supreme Court.

  10. The full text of the ruling is available at: http://indiankanoon.org/doc/1434517/

  11. Seeking to counter the government’s actions and arguments, feminist voices took the position that dance bars were, in fact, distinct from prostitution, thereby garnering criticism from some scholars (Kotiswaran 2009)

  12. On file with the author.

  13. http://www.ndtv.com/elections-news/come-may-16-bangladeshi-immigrants-must-pack-up-narendra-modi-559164, consulted on July 23, 2015.

  14. http://qz.com/304806/narendra-modis-plan-to-stop-illegal-immigration-from-bangladesh-is-full-of-holes/, consulted on July 24, 2015.

  15. Personal meeting, November 2009.

  16. The numbers, until 2009, are on file with the author.

  17. https://www.lwbooks.co.uk/soundings/kilburn-manifesto, consulted on May 4, 2016.

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Acknowledgments

My gratitude to the editors, particularly Patrick Gryzanka, and to the reviewers.

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  1. Simmons College, 300 The Fenway, Boston, MA, 02115, USA

    Jyoti Puri

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Correspondence to Jyoti Puri.

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Puri, J. Sexualizing Neoliberalism: Identifying Technologies of Privatization, Cleansing, and Scarcity. Sex Res Soc Policy 13, 308–320 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13178-016-0236-y

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